Planting (2)

It snowed a few days ago, but I don’t feel like the world is quite so cold and dead because I’m looking out the window over a planter full of tiny micro greens, happily craning their heads to the weak sun. It’s hard, in fact, to see anything but life and growth in my windows right now: the amaryllis we got for Christmas has sprouted and flowered, tilting sideways in the process.

Succulents are hanging around, doing whatever succulents do (they don’t grow very fast, do they?) and I’m trying to coax my mint plant to revive from a stem-crushing episode. And just in case, I’ve made a cutting that will soon sprout roots, just in case death precedes this resurrection.

These days have felt like death, in many ways. Nationally, internationally, locally, and even at home (thanks, knee injury!). Death, stagnation, cheerless droll days that seem to linger on and on, repeating endlessly. The thought that lingers in my mind is this:

I/We have never felt more in need of resurrection.

The turmoil that shapes our daily discourse feels like the beginning of an end, or the beginning of an endless death. It’s ironically like that movie Groundhog Day, where the day keeps repeating over, and over, and over. That’s what this death feels like–we wake up to our alarm clocks in the morning, awaiting more of the same death, the same pain cloaked in new words. We hope, as we fall asleep at night, that something magical will happen and tomorrow will not be a repeat. But then we wake up to the same alarm clock, and the endlessness begins again.

I’ve been watching my mint plant for the past few weeks, trying to coax it into reviving. But instead, it’s been ever-so-slowly dying–not the immediate crash and burn kind of death, but one that happens so slowly you don’t even notice until the bottom half of the plant is suddenly covered in brown and yellowing leaves.

So today, I took a cutting from it, and placed this cutting into a glass of water. And now I wait to see when it will grow roots, and be able to stand on its own alongside a dying sibling.

And on the days that feel like endless death, I will attempt to capture a glimmer of life. Take a cutting from those moments of joy and grace, and set it aside. Let the cutting be nourished, grow strong, sprout roots. And perhaps, that joy and grace will one day be able to stand alongside death. Perhaps one day, it will become tall and strong enough to overtake death, to become the predominant force of our day, to become our new alarm clock (not the one you want to toss out the window because it’s playing the same old tune again). Perhaps this new cutting will become something more.

I’m Amanda. I started this blog as a 13-year-old farmgirl… and now I’m a twenty-something seminarian. I like to blog about theology, literature, Sherlock Holmes, my cat, and sometimes I reflect on this crazy journey I’ve been given. Currently based in Virginia/DC.

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